Netflix Wii: 1.5 Million Users a Day Says Nintendo

In light of Netflix’s launch on the Nintendo 3DS this week, Nintendo is now claiming that 1.5 million users log on to their Netflix through the Wii each day.

Earlier this year, Netflix announced that they had a total of 23.6 million subscribers using their system. So to say 1.5 million are logging on through their Wiis on a daily basis is saying that that a significant chunk are using it through the console. Netflix is also available on the other two big consoles, the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360, in addition to home computers and other miscellaneous hardware.

Today, streaming media and video game hardware are rather entwined. It’s great that Nintendo has joined the party in the last year, but I think there’s a little more to this than meets the eye.

I suspect that once the Wii U is released the number of Nintendo Netflix users will increase. For starters, Wii U owners will be able to stream HD media, as opposed to standard definition. Secondly, since the Wii U will not feature a DVD player, Netflix, will be the only way for most Wii owners to watch movies using their video game consoles.

While it is exciting to have the option to use Netflix on the 3DS, I don’t find it particularly appealing. Yes, you can watch 3D content, but I prefer watching my content in 2D. Also, the 3DS screen is tiny. It’s nice for a handheld, but I wouldn’t want to watch movies on it. It’s like what people a have been using their iPods for years, and I don’t like it. I’ll watch a youtube video or a trailer on that screen, but you won’t catch me watching a movie.

While I wish the Wii U came packaged with a blu-ray player, I do understand that the decision was cost-related, but perhaps it was more than that. Maybe Nintendo is going to play this through a different angle. After all, people have been saying for years that eventually we won’t use disks, that all content will be downloadable. Sony is already doing this through their Playstation Network, and all Playstation Vita games will be available exclusively through the PSN; no hard copies will be sold. So maybe Nintendo is trying to do something similar with only providing streaming DVDs. The problem with that is that the media is streamed through the internet, not downloaded to the console like how you would buy a movie through the PSN

Readers, how many of you use Netflix, and how many of you use it on a video game console?

Source: Nintendo